REMEMBER the man and boychild in Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thief? In the prewar grump in Europe, a bicycle could get you places and get you jobs just by its mere objective presence. But, subjectively, without a bike, you were man emasculated.

In India, the bike is slowly being converted from virtually indestructible double-rod workhorse to glitzy, graphicked all terrain bike, good for macho extracurricular excursions and stylish wheelies but terrible for carrying giant loads over respectable distances. A time might come when the iron workhorses will have to pit themselves against the pretty pedal brigade just to stay alive.

Since India is the world's second-largest manufacturer of bikes -- after China -- the heart of the machine is best seen in the mofussil towns and villages. An alumnus from the National School of Design in Ahmedabad once photographed hundreds of Indian bikes that had been bought in original form and then adapted to the peculiar needs of their owners: hooks added here and there, clasps to keep the goods steady, the front hook for a lantern converted to a luggage carrier. Wheels in India range from the milkman's bike, the Ayurved's 2-wheeled clinic, the water carrier, the knife sharpener, the vegetable mart, the clothes press, the bangle seller, the ice cream unit, the calendar seller, to a pedalmobile for a joyous family of 5.

There is indigenous ingenuity in this: no two workhorses in this country look like each other (if you ignore the clones in urban India). All of them are built to basics: no horns, no magnetos, no shock absorbers, no gears; the ballbearings are soon gone, the chain creaks and potholes leave you with a permanent pain in the butt.

Nevertheless, the ancient design, common to both India and China, is the best: looped no-fuss handlebars, not the swallow-winged sportsters that made Kapil Dev such a legend. Whoever thought of ergonomics those days? Where Indian bike manufacturers have failed -- abysmally -- is in designing bikes with options for further modifications built in; at the very least, hooks and clasps. Or bikes designed for specific functions: for the vendor, a bike with a big, flat rump; for the balloonwallah, a carrier for the helium gas cylinder; for the calendar seller, a big, folding board.

These are not bicycles, these are ways of life.